Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

Ever since I began this blog, one of the mainstays has become casting news for Sam Raimi's upcoming Spider-Man 4. The latest batch, via Movieline, of news concerning Peter Parker's newest silver screen adversary contains the one and only John Malkovich being rumored to play the role of The Vulture. I don't really know anything about The Vulture, and personally am behind both the rumors for Dylan Baker to finally take his role of Dr. Curt Connors to the villainous The Lizard and Bruce Campbell to take over a larger role in some capacity against the web-slinging hero. Still, I can't say that I can be truly against anything that has Malkovich in it. What I can be against though, is with the plethora of baddies that Spider-Man has faced over the years, that Raimi is thinking of creating a new one, The Vulturess, played by Anne Hathaway, earlier rumored to take on the role of Felicia Hardy/The Black Cat. Does this ludicrous part two of Movieline's article tend to take this over the edge of believability? Probably.

On another casting note that seems to dominate my blog, The Hollywood Reporter has an article today stating that The Hobbit will begin casting this week for every role except Gandalf, which is being reserved for Sir Ian McKellen. In an interview with Peter Jackson, he vows to not bow under star pressure for the film, stating that the star of the series and his Lord of the Rings adaptation was J.R.R. Tolkien, not any of the actors. Jackson wouldn't comment on if Andy Serkis and Hugo Weaving was a lock to return to their respective roles of Gollum and Elrond. The producer also denies rumors that James McAvoy had been approached for a rather large role (a rumor I had actually not heard before reading THR's story) and that the production of the films had been put on a delay.

After the seemingly endless list of lawsuits that streamed from the aftermath of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, it has been kind of shocking to me that the same level of legal troubles hasn't plagued Sacha Baron Cohen's latest raunchy comedy Bruno. Yet, finally, according to The Daily Mail, a lawsuit seeking over $100 million has recently popped up. The lawsuit stems from the scene where Bruno supposedly interviews at real life terrorist in a refugee camp, claimed to be the Lebanese leader of a group called Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Turns out, the actual man interviewed, Ayman Abu Aita, is a grocer, a self-proclaimed peace activist, Palestinian and interviewed at a hotel outside of Bethlehem. Not only does this kill any comedy the scene had, but after Cohen's stories of how he actually got the clip with the terrorist, most famously during his appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, but it certainly makes us wonder that with the low key legal department, that most of this flick was completely scripted. I mean, some of the scenes, such as the parent interviews, or Paula Abdul's cameo, seems so outrageously unbelievable, that now we have to assume that we've been had. Is it still funny to see Cohen's flopping penis in the midst of a focus group or a black baby hanging from a cross? Yes, but if we wanted scripted raunch, we would pull out some old John Waters DVDs.

According to BoxOfficeMojo, the latest in the spoof craze of films, Transylmania, set the record for all time low box office gross for a film debuting in over 1,000 theaters. Thank God, now maybe this will discourage Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer from continuing their careers.

On a final note, Cinematical's Jenni Miller had an article today complaining on the continued use of the term "The Wachowski Brothers" since Larry Wachowski has recently came out to live his life as a woman, now being referred to as Lana Wachowski. First time I heard this, and I though rather interesting news to pass along.

Friday, July 17th, 2009

This picture showed up on I Watch Stuff today, and I could not blog without posting it. Just gives off a wonderful vibe, doesn't it?

More good news for the day, Kevin Smith's two biggest hits, 1994's independent gem, and one of my favorite films of all time, Clerks., as well as 1997's Chasing Amy will be getting the blu ray treatment. Among the extras, the Clerks. disc will feature a three hour documentary formerly only seen at festival screenings, called Oh, What a Lovely Tea Party, a behind-the-scenes taping of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back directed by Smith's wife Jennifer Schwalbach-Smith. I still personally stick with the DVD medium for the most part, unless I can find a really bitchin' VHS. But I am glad that whenever DVD becomes obsolete, that Smith's two classic raunchy comedies will be there waiting for me.

Has anybody heard that some theaters' automated telephone schedules have been giving a warning about the content in Bruno? I am just curious to what got cut for the MPAA to change the film's rating from an NC-17 to an R, considering it had to be somewhat more shocking than what the world is up in arms about. Can't wait for that DVD.

Walter Cronkite passed away today at the age of 92. Cronkite didn't have much to do with cinema, but was indeed a panelist on most of the American Film Institute countdowns and television specials on classic films, a interviewee in several documentaries, including Out of the Shadows: The Man Who Was Deep Throat, Good Grief, Charlie Brown: A Tribute to Charles Schulz and Bob Hope: The First 90 Years among others, and even provided his voice to the lackluster cartoon We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story in 1993. Not to mention receiving a load of special thanks credits that include Apollo 13 and Empire of Dreams, the documentary featured on the 4-disc 2004 release of the original Star Wars trilogy. Needless to say on tomorrow's news, none of these things will be mentioned as Cronkite's coverage of things, such as John F. Kennedy's assassination and the Vietnam War are much more important, and in that way, is why more so than anything I listed above, Cronkite is important to film. He is the news anchor of news anchors, and is the archetype that most screenwriters and authors put to use for such a character.

Finally, I mentioned Where the Wild Things Are yesterday, but a video surfaced on the web today on what a potential Disney animated version of Maurice Sendak's beloved children's work could have been like. Directed by Pixar founder and animation legend John Lasseter, it actually looks quite good. But before you get too down, go look up Spike Jonze's trailer again and you will realize that ultimately, it was a good thing this failed, or else we might not have the upcoming live action version. Enjoy.



P.S., I try to stay away from covering television on here, but since Futurama has spun-off four direct-to-DVD films, it is close enough. The A.V. Club has reported that Comedy Central is looking to recast the voice talent for the series. Look, it broke my heart when they left Adult Swim, but to keep this going with new people, it's just wrong. In my digging on more to this story, I even found a character description of Dr. Zoidberg. Does this mean no Billy West? Really!? Jesus, what's the world coming to.

Monday, July 13th, 2009

This past March, I was averaging around 80% of all conversation being devoted to the Zack Snyder-directed adaptation of Alan Moore's classic graphic novel Watchmen. A lot of people I spoke to decided to dislike the film because of the change in the story's ending, although since it kept the central themes of Moore's writings, and the fact that the first 150 or so minutes of the film was nearly spot on perfect, it more than forgave the ending of a film that I feel is the best of the year, thus far. Notice that I put "nearly" spot on up there. Well, that's because the few things that Snyder did leave out for the theatrical version have either been teased or promised for the director's cut of the DVD, due out July 21st. Of course, one of the main events of the buy will be the deleted scene of Hollis Mason's murder, which shockingly, Warner Brothers has released on the Internet. Unfortunately, WB has disabled embedding of the clip, so here is the link for the YouTube video. Enjoy the clip, because like the rest of the film, it is unbelievably perfect.

Speaking of Snyder, I read a while back that he was shockingly going to put out his first PG-13 film with Sucker Punch, described in a previous Cinematical article as "Alice in Wonderland with machine guns". However, the chances of achieving the rating has just got slimmer as the blogsphere has been all abuzz due to a Metro UK story claiming that newly confirmed star of High School Musical fame Vanessa Hudgens will "strip naked" in the film.

Remember after it was announced that Raja Gosnell would take over a live-action version of The Smurfs, I said God hated Hanna-Barbera? Well, it was announced today, via Variety, that the wonderful cartoon Hong Kong Phooey will be next in-line for the live action/CGI hybrid silver screen fix, directed by Alex Zamm, whose last picture was the direct-to-video Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts. So yeah, that statement is now official.

Yesterday we took a look at a very impressive fan film in Ashes to Ashes (check it out if you already haven't). Today, Cinematical ran a story on the mother of all fan films, 472 people breaking up Star Wars into 15-second intervals, to make a hodgepodge mesh of different styles and interpretations of the film. Headed up by Casey Pugh, this could be ingenious, or the worst idea ever. Either way, it will certainly be interesting.

Natalie Portman was announced to be the big screen version of Jane Foster, the love interest of Thor. I'm not extremely knowledgeable on the Thor comics, so I don't know if this is a good call or not, but I quite love Portman, so it could definitely be worse.

Bruno took home the top of the box office this weekend. I have been trying to distance myself from reviews, in fear that I may ruin some of the better jokes. The sad thing is, I fear that with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince dominating this weekend, my local theater might just decide that it isn't even worth toying with anymore, as the second week intake up against the upcoming blockbuster will certainly be pitiable compared to this week.

And finally, speaking of the newest installation of the Harry Potter series, I will not be blogging tomorrow as I am to head out of town to a decent theater to take in the midnight showing. I will be back on Tuesday, probably with plenty of rants, and maybe with something a little special I can dig up as an offering for my absence.

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

Over the past few days while I've been away from the computer, the blogsphere has been buzzing about the three finalists for the role of Hal Jordan in the upcoming Green Lantern movie. None of the three seemed to give off the vibe that they would be safe from thousands of rants and petitions from fanboys of the Bill Finger/Martin Nodell created DC hero. First, is the guy that is too known for his comedy to allow fanboys to hope for a serious adaptation in Bradley Cooper. Secondly, we have the complete surprise in Justin Timberlake, whose previous mass popularity would almost make it impossible to watch the film without imagining that the real Justin Timberlake happened by a power ring, and causing all moviegoers to lose sight of the actual character of Jordan. And finally, the best of the three, and today announced as the winner of the race, Ryan Reynolds. Although Reynolds has still had his fair share of cinematic misfortunes (i.e. the currently playing The Proposal), and is already submersed in the comic-to-film world as the character Deadpool in the horrific X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the rumored solo film for the 90's Marvel hero, as well as Hannibal King in Blade: Trinity (Should we just hope that Marvel really hated Reynolds?) . So, are we happy over this? Well, keep in mind that the film is to be directed by Martin Campbell, who made James Bond watchable again in Casino Royale. So, at least there is hope, and maybe Reynolds could actually come out of this thing a nice surprise; however, I'm mostly seeing bitching fuel for cinephiles like myself in his future.

Other things in brief, as there is a lot to talk about. Bruno came out yesterday. Although, since I live in a small town, I don't get to see it yet, even though the aforementioned Proposal is in its third week. I'll talk more about Bruno next week if it becomes available. Also, it got a great review by Roger Ebert saying that John Waters should pass the torch of trash cinema to Sacha Baron Cohen. Maybe a bit of an overstatement, but one of the highest praises I have heard in the cinema world for some time. Also missing my small Kentucky town this weekend... I Love You, Beth Cooper and Blood: The Last Vampire.

In an interview to promote Inglorious Basterds with Cinematical, Eli Roth said that an extension of the faux trailer Thanksgiving from Grindhouse, a la Robert Rodriguez' Machete is in the works.

Variety reports that Raja Gosnell (the man behind Beverly Hills Chihuahua) will be behind a live-action version of The Smurfs. So it is official... God hates Hanna-Barbera.

So, on Thursday I went to Comedy Off Broadway in Lexington, Kentucky to see Hal Sparks do stand-up. I do quite enjoy Sparks, being an alum of Talk Soup, but despite the extreme lustful giddiness and quality reassurance of the friend that put the idea on the table, I was still shocked over how funny he actually was, so I was going to share a stand-up YouTube video as an apologetic offering for not blogging (isn't it weird that I pretend I have readers?), but none could be found that wasn't obviously shot with a camera phone, so instead, here is a more appropriate video for a movie blog, Hal Sparks' cameo in Spider-Man 2, over-dubbed with Japanese.

And finally, one more surprise! Cinematical, via Vimeo, has a great video from David Berry, a rotoscope and animation artist from Star Wars has released some home videos to us collective movie nerds on the Interwebs. Enjoy.

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

Last year, when I first saw the trailer to the Zach Galifianakis-starring film Visioneers, I got way overexcited, and proclaimed to all two people that would ever listen to me, that he could be the movie geek's frontrunner for Oscar contention. Because, let's face it, as great as Sean Penn, Richard Jenkins, Frank Langella, Brad Pitt and Mickey Rourke was in all five respective nominated performances of last year, none has the everyman appeal that Galifianakis does. But did I go a little too far with that statement? Well, seeing that theatrical distribution fell through, I won't know for sure until July 21st, when the film goes direct-to-DVD. However, I have faith, after watching the new trailer for Robert D. Siegel's Big Fan, that Patton Oswalt will take up the mantel for the unexpected contender that we will all be cheering for come this Academy Awards. The trailer is incredible, and seeing that director/writer Siegel also wrote last year's hit The Wrestler, as well as being the former senior editor of the satirical newspaper/web site The Onion, we know he understands drama and humor, and seems capable of mixing the two perfectly. In fact, the first film I thought of when watching the trailer, mixing kind of a gritty, serious storyline with what will surely have its fair share of humor, was Todd Solondz' excellent 1998 film Happiness. To top such a film, in my personal opinion, is a tall order, but watch and see what you think.

Other things in brief... MSN Cinemash has featured an entertaining video from 500 Days of Summer, based on a snippet of dialogue from the film, where Joseph Gordon-Levitt portrays Nancy Spungen, and Zooey Deschanel takes the role of Sid Vicious in a nice parody of Sid and Nancy. Definitely worth a view if you're bored.

Cinematical has an interesting story up, stemming from an interview Francis Ford Coppola did with Esquire, where he said that he originally didn't want to do a sequel to The Godfather, and when finally convinced, he just wanted to take a role to help with the screenplay, and had considered passing off the directorial job to then young Martin Scorsese.

Not shockingly, but sadly, it was announced that Rob Zombie's inaugural animation film, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, will be released straight-to-DVD. This adds on to the previously mentioned Visioneers as two kind of anticipated straight-to-DVD efforts this year. Maybe one day, we could look forward to the medium not being dominated by rejected Lifetime films and Steven Seagal.

Speaking of Galifianakis, MovieWeb reports he is considering a new film directed by The Hangover's Todd Phillips called Man-Witch, where the bearded comedian will be the only male in a school for witchcraft. Sounds like solid comedy, let's just hope this one gets made.

Stephen Dorff mentioned somewhere that Blade could get a reboot. Don't get me wrong, I'm actually a fan of the first film, but does anybody really want this?

I'll close with another discussion of Michael Jackson. In honor of the media insanity of his funeral today, added with the fact that Bruno debuts this coming Friday, do you think that it was the right choice to completely cut Sacha Baron Cohen's interview with LaToya Jackson out of the film? Sure, the premiere night right after he died, I get that. But, let's face it, the people most likely to be offended at a tactless joke about a recently deceased person would be Christians, homosexuals, and seeing the role Michael Jackson played in breaking down walls, African Americans. And can't we already be sure that the theater will be emptied of these groups? I can't wait to see how many people Baron Cohen offends, why not add a few more?